Killing Writing Careers

Kristine Kathryn Rusch has a post about writing careers, and how the crap of the industry almost did her in at one point. But she found a way to persevere, and is now glad she did. This is a must read for anyone who wants to be a pro writer today.

I admire her telling her story, and could have been one of the crushed writers she speaks of. I felt so strongly, I commented on the blog. Here's my thoughts:

Kris, thank you for telling your story, which needs to be part of a writer's basic education. A mere three years ago, I would have signed any ridiculous publishing contract to get my mystery series started. I believed in the traditional path, had an agent who had industry pros agree the book was good, etc. And I would have likely had a soul-crushing experience as well. The series would be dead by now, and I would be wondering why I'd bothered.

But I was always learning. I read your blog, and Dean's and Konrath's, and many, many others.I talked to writers, who'd had terrible publishing experiences. Locked into contracts, with shrinking returns, and unable to put out anything else under their own name. Books that never got sold or delivered when people begged to buy them. Even best-selling books had been rejected over 50 times, on average. I started doing the math, and figured I'd be dead before I could get anything going-- and I'd still have to win the lottery, since over 96% of books don't sell more than a couple of thousand copies.

So I found a small publisher who would do it my way, and launched. Instead of a boulevard of broken dreams, my third series novel just came out, plus I've put out 6 story collections by myself, in different genres, and I continue to write and publish short stories. I do public signings (self-scheduled), and people tell me how much they've liked something I wrote. The freedom to do what I want is a heady thing, and I feel great about being a writer on my own terms, with the covers I want, and the content approval I desire.

Awhile back, I went on a supposed writer's help forum because some people were asking questions about my publisher (though some were just mindlessly bashing them while getting their facts wrong). I tried to clear things up by explaining how I'd reached my decision, that writers now had options, and how we should look at them, etc, and each choose their own path. You can guess the result. People who were chained like galley slaves to the Old Path blasted me as the worst kind of heretic, disparaged any evidence I offered, and repeated untruths as if they were gospel. I was told that bigger publishers were always better, would always make you more money, and always lovingly take your book to the best possible place it could be. I tried to offer contrary evidence, and point them to some data that disproved these assertions, but more of them kept piling on in the echo chamber. So I bade them well, and signed off, but wonder how many other authors they doomed to go the heartbreak route.

Views From the Top

A couple of great perspectives here on modern publishing, both in one day!

First is Hugh Howey. Who's he? Merely a guy who was writing his books and working for wage just over a year ago, and who struck gold with his writing, and signed a monster, 7-figure deal with a big publisher-- for the print rights only-- he keeps the ebook profits!
Holy crap! This is a sea change in how business is done in the publishing world.
Yet better is that Howey seems like a really nice guy who wants to help other writers. And he has a great piece out on Salon today, which is a response to another of Salon's self-publishing-bashing pieces from a few days ago, where an idiot whined in public about being a failure at self-publishing-- and condemned it-- because he did it wrong, was incredibly stupid, and had unrealistic expectations.
So read Self-publishing is the future — and great for writers.

Then go for the perspective of a long-time pro in the writng biz. Kristine Kathryn Rusch posted
The Business Rusch: Four Years on what a revolution there has been in a mere four years.

Irony and Comment

Ironic story seen today. On The Passive Guy site, a great place for publishing news and links, had a story about a former opponent of self-publishing who finally got tired of the gatekeeper game a couple of weeks ago.

He got a cover, formatted his book, and posted it for sale. Guess what? It's become a breakaway hit, and he's making sales and money hand-over-fist.

Boy, he's sure changed his tune!

And as a companion piece, read the excellent post by Kristine Kathryn Rusch- The Logic Behind Self Publishing.

Information like this is why I laugh when some folks spout off that the only real way to succeed in writing is to have a big publisher do it all for you.

Editors: Needing, Wanting, Getting

Writers need editors, good ones, to make the work better. Too often in this day and age, editing is not giving the pre-eminence it deserves.

The big traditonal houses cut many of their long-term in-house editors (and thereby their own throats), which may one of the reasons so much coming out of the big houses is absolute crap.

BUT-- you say, those books are on the (voice of awe) New York Times Best Seller List.
Well, big whoop. Doesn't mean they're good, just that someone said they sold a certain amount in a brief period of time, in what may well be a rigged game.

I point out that fast-food places sell a lot of pink-slime burgers laced with ammonia, but few would claim they're haute cusiine.

It's getting to the point where if a book claims to be a best-seller, it's got a good chance of being a steaming pile of pony poop. I continually see stuff that wouldn't pass my local critique group, yet it's touted as "quality" from a curated system.

Where are the story editors, the line editors? Heck, some books even lack the basic copyediting.

Why is this so? Because editors, especially good ones, cost money, and the big houses are about profit. So they skimp now, and it shows. They'll squawk about the poor editing of self-publishing-- and they're right-- but they should clean up their own backyard as well.

So the question keeps getting asked- how do you hire a good editor, and what kind of one do you need?

The answer lies in the post of Kristine Kathryn Rusch in The Business Rusch: Hiring Editors.

Says it all. Go read, and learn. She is the wise one.

Great interview out today

Happy Monday, and Happy Thanksgiving Week! Don't forget the cranberry sauce...

Today I'm interviewed on the blog of Serena Akeroyd, fledgling Romance Writer, and I get to give long-winded answers to a lot of great questions, giving writing advice and dropping names of other writers giving even better advice: Stephen King, Dean Wesley Smith, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Chuck Wendig.

This is the third interview in the last few weeks-- lots of exposure for the work, as I feverishly hammer away at A Shadow on the Wall, the third Zack Taylor mystery.

Numbers Game

For anyone interested in a writing career, a couple of must-read posts.

First, the book-selling numbers of Joe Konrath:
 http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2012/09/konraths-sales.html

He's the guy who's the thumb in the eye of traditional publishers, who has made a ton of money-- selling books that traditional publishing wouldn't touch, because they couldn't sell enough of them quickly. Their world is about hitting big, fast. But that's not how most books do, they sell over time.

Konrath doesn't seem to mind, though, not having best sellers, just lots of some sellers, enough to make a living from. A writer making a living is not in the agenda of the Big Pub houses- they want to make a killing for themselves.

Konrath says that a lot of writers could do well his way, and it sends the New York Old Guard into a But-lather.
Merely mention his name, and they start going-  But-But-But

He includes the frightening statistic that close to 7 out of 10 books shipped get returned. If that's even remotely near the truth, what an incredible waste!


And cogent comment with her own numbers, from long-time professional writer Kristine Kathryn Rusch.

http://kriswrites.com/2012/09/26/the-business-rusch-watching-the-numbers/

She says:
"Joe’s numbers are good, given all that, but they’re small for a lifetime average. Of course, he hasn’t been publishing for ten years yet, so he’s still—by the career standards I mentioned above—a new writer."

A "new writer" making thousands a month outside the Big Pub world, appealing to readers directly.

So tell me again why writers should play that traditional publishing lottery?

Big Post on Publishing

Kristine Kathryn Rusch at The Business Rusch: The End of The World as We Know It.

Great post, with cogent material about the current state of publishing.

My favorite quote: 
"These people have no clue what they’re doing. But they think you should be reading something you don’t like, published at prices you don’t want to pay, sold to you by stores that don’t care about your reading experience.

The fact that all of that is going away threatens their business."

Wow. Want some aloe for that burn?

What's Wrong With Publishing, or The Kobayashi Maru

Today someone asked "how's your book doing?"
It's great to be able to say-- "Which one?"
As of last December, I only had one novel out for sale-- A Memory of Grief-- now I've got two novels published, with a third due out later this year-- while I also do work on book #4, the one to follow.
And I've got five story collections out in print-- while working on several more.
And-- the other novels I've got in the immediate pipeline.
So the book(s) is/are doing well, thanks. Better every day.

In our talk, I said it was tough being an Indie writer, as you're responsible for all the promotion-- as well as writing more. No matter if you're promoting one book or writing another, you feel like you're not doing enough if you can't do both at the same time-- and with a regular day job and a family, you have little enough time as it is.

He smiled and said, "You've got a real Kobayashi Maru situation there."

This touched my nerdy little heart. For those of you who may not have your geek creds, the Kobayashi Maru was a plot device used in Star Trek. It was an exercise at Starfleet Academy, designed as unwinnable, no matter what the player did. It was designed to teach prospective officers the meaning of fear and failure. Everyone failed. Until James T. Kirk came along, a man who refused to accept failure, ever. He beat the Kobayashi Maru by cheating the rigged game! Kirk hacked the game computer to allow for a winnable scenario. And won it.

The whole idea is legend to those of us who get it. It shows us what Kirk's indomitable spirit is all about, and why he's successful as a Starship Captain.

This had tremendous resonance with me, because of another recent communication. I told a pro writer about my ambition to write fiction full-time, making it my living.

The response was "Forget it-- it's a pipe dream. You can't make a living writing fiction. I've had too many friends who've come to a bad end because they tried this."

Now this is a person who has been writing and publishing in the traditional pub world for almost 20 years. They said that they can sell a new book on a short proposal. They've got a spate of prestigious awards and nominations. With terrific, high-level reviews from professionals, a following, a number of books with good covers, a good website, and impressive sales rankings and reviews on Amazon. And with the support of big publishing behind them, offering hardback, paperback, e-books, audio books, and translation editions.

And this person cannot make a steady enough income to survive!
That, dear readers, is What's Wrong With Big Traditional Publishing.
Someone is making a ton of money here, and it ain't the person creating the product. A pro, with everything in place, is not getting a steady income from a terrific backlist and a regular supply of new books.

Wonder why. Maybe because Big Trad Pub gives a piddly 17.5% to the creator of the work, then another 15% comes out of that for an agent.

So we have a system that creates the expectation of failure. You can have everything going for you, do everything right, and you still get nothing but scraps from Big Trad Pub (for which they expect you should be groveling and grateful).

Sorry, ain't buying it. Like James Tiberius Kirk, I reject this rigged system, and the attitude of failure it fosters.
It's the Kobayashi Maru scenario once again-- a system that's unbeatable.

So, like Kirk, I'll go outside the system to beat it-- and do what's necessary to succeed. If that means Big Trad Pub is Starfleet, and won't let me be a captain without playing their losing game, I'll go rogue and get my own damn Starship.

I'll follow in the steps of others who began at Starfleet, and who have also rejected Big Trad Pub-- and are now making a very nice living.
Folks like JA Konrath, Dean Wesley Smith, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, and Barry Eisler, just to name a few. The ones who show you how to succeed, how to reach for the stars, not be afraid of them.

For some time now, when people have asked what the middle initial T stands for in my name, I've answered "Tiberius."
Now you know why.

Live Long, and Prosper.
And Non Carborundum Illegitimatus.

Traditional Publishing Is Dead

Well, don't take it from me-- take another data point from author Mark Terry, who compares his pitifully small six-month royalty check from his big NY publisher with the whopping one he got for one MONTH from Amazon for his ebooks.

As the traditional world of hardcovers shrinks, the world of ebooks expands. One technology fades, another gains prominence.

There are still a number of people who want paper books in hand-- this is a good thing, and will not go away. Just the ones who always made a profit while keeping writers impoverished will be the ones who suffer. Am not seeing a lot wrong with that...

And Kristine Kathryn Rusch talks about how the big publishers are responding-- by making their contracts worse for the writer than ever! Just can't drive them away fast enough!